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Teams & Riders The Great Big Cycling Transfers, Extensions, and Rumours Thread

Page 172 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
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Anderis

May 10, 2013
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Kaptain Kool said:
Not sure I follow. Alpecin-Deceuninck is currently 7th in the UCI 3-year points standings. They've already performed better than all but 6 World teams. What difference does it make if they don't win the GC in Itzulia? It's also a pretty kool luxury that Kaden Groves never wanted to be in Catalunya but still managed to win a stage.
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You don't seem to get the point.

There's literally no upside for a WT team to be so short of riders suited to a certain type of races they will need to attend, even if they have a WT-worthy team regardless. Just like there was no upside in Movistar or Euskaltel lacking suitable riders for Northern Classics several years ago, there's no upside in Alpecin lacking riders for mountains or heavy hills. They don't need GC riders but they should at least have someone who could win in that terrain from a break, otherwise they'll be a waste of space in certain races. It's not like they can't get a few chaper options for the mountains without compromising their sprint and northern classics strength.
 
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Kaptain Kool

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Anderis said:
You don't seem to get the point.

There's literally no upside for a WT team to be so short of riders suited to a certain type of races they will need to attend, even if they have a WT-worthy team regardless. Just like there was no upside in Movistar or Euskaltel lacking suitable riders for Northern Classics several years ago, there's no upside in Alpecin lacking riders for mountains or heavy hills. They don't need GC riders but they should at least have someone who could win in that terrain from a break, otherwise they'll be a waste of space in certain races. It's not like they can't get a few chaper options for the mountains without compromising their sprint and northern classics strength.
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They've won stages in Tirreno-Adriatico the each of the last 2 years. They've won stages in every GT they participated in. They just signed a rider who won a stage in Catalunya. They have plenty of riders who can win in stages. Adding a 4th tier climber doesn't give them a better chance of winning a stage than the riders they already have. If they can win in the Giro with riders like Oldani and De Bondt, they can win in Romandie, too.
 
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Anderis

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Kaptain Kool said:
Adding a 4th tier climber doesn't give them a better chance of winning a stage than the riders they already have.
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Maybe they should consider adding a 3rd tier climber, then. ;)

Yeah, they can enter all hilly/mountainous races with a bunch of riders doing basically a training ride and hoping for a fluke breakway/reduced sprint win on the easiest stage of the race and do literally nothing on the harder stages. For me, that's a very low bar for a WT team. You may not mind it but I'm not a fan of the prospect.
 
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tobydawq

tobydawq

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Kaptain Kool said:
They've won stages in Tirreno-Adriatico the each of the last 2 years. They've won stages in every GT they participated in. They just signed a rider who won a stage in Catalunya. They have plenty of riders who can win in stages. Adding a 4th tier climber doesn't give them a better chance of winning a stage than the riders they already have. If they can win in the Giro with riders like Oldani and De Bondt, they can win in Romandie, too.
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I agree, it's a complete non-issue.
 
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Samamba

Samamba

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Kaptain Kool said:
They've won stages in Tirreno-Adriatico the each of the last 2 years. They've won stages in every GT they participated in. They just signed a rider who won a stage in Catalunya. They have plenty of riders who can win in stages. Adding a 4th tier climber doesn't give them a better chance of winning a stage than the riders they already have. If they can win in the Giro with riders like Oldani and De Bondt, they can win in Romandie, too.
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I don't agree as you don't get those breakaway chances in those one week races as often as you get them in GTs like the Giro.

Look it's an opinion obviously, but take it from a LTS fan, having to ride those races and not having climbers in your squad is incredibly boring and just means you can participate in less races that actually suit the riders in your team.

I'm also assuming Groves is going to be put in a lot of Belgian races to somewhat replace Merlier, and I wouldn't be surprised that's one of the reason why Groves signed for them.
 
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Kaptain Kool

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Anderis said:
Maybe they should consider adding a 3rd tier climber, then. ;)

Yeah, they can enter all hilly/mountainous races with a bunch of riders doing basically a training ride and hoping for a fluke breakway/reduced sprint win on the easiest stage of the race and do literally nothing on the harder stages. For me, that's a very low bar for a WT team. You may not mind it but I'm not a fan of the prospect.
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Except that Alpecin will never be that since they already win stages in every stage race they enter. They signed a rider who finished 2nd in LBL but won't be able to do anything in a hilly stage in Poland?

Or should they be like, say, EF Education-EZ Post, with a bunch of 2nd/3rd tier riders who can get into breaks? Alpecin is 5,500 points ahead of them. Movistar's problem isn't that they don't have riders for northern classics or can't win a stage in the Binckbank Tour. Their random stage win in the Dauphine won't save them, either. Their problem is that their big signings over the last few years (Landa, Ivan Garcia, MAL) have been failures and Mas's current year is a disaster.
 
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nedhill

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Kaptain Kool said:
Except that Alpecin will never be that since they already win stages in every stage race they enter. They signed a rider who finished 2nd in LBL but won't be able to do anything in a hilly stage in Poland?

Or should they be like, say, EF Education-EZ Post, with a bunch of 2nd/3rd tier riders who can get into breaks? Alpecin is 5,500 points ahead of them. Movistar's problem isn't that they don't have riders for northern classics or can't win a stage in the Binckbank Tour. Their random stage win in the Dauphine won't save them, either. Their problem is that their big signings over the last few years (Landa, Ivan Garcia, MAL) have been failures and Mas's current year is a disaster.
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It is highly likely that the point system is revised going forward so that points rewarded for 1.1 races are adjusted relative to stage races, and higher level competition. No one knows yet, but they could for example cap how many points per team you can count from 1.1 races towards the WT points accumulation. Alternately they could adjust the number of points you get for non-podium placings in one-day races.

Obviously, it is a balancing act as they want to support the race organizers, and make it possible for up-and-coming teams, in addition, they want teams to send competitive teams to WT races, and they want to make sure that the compensation for riders stays fair. Finally, there should be somewhat of a balancing act, such that being from Belgium or France doesn't continue to give those teams a massive advantage.

The teams that have counted on raiding lower-level races for many of their points, will unlikely be able to rely on that in the coming 3 years.
 
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Ricco'

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Nicola Conci was also promoted from the Devo squad to the WT team.

The problem with Vine is his consistencty. From this year it seems he has level for top-10 performances in mountain stages but is very prone to losing time with illnesses, crashes, random bad days, etc.

Vine, Conci, Meurisse, Stannard, SKA and Gogl (and random performances by Oldani and so) is a somewhat decent group for hard stages, mainly for stage hunting in rolling terrain.
 
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pman

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Have we heard anything besides rumors on Carapaz ? Maybe they're waiting for the end of the Tour of Poland? I wouldn't announce I am leaving a team in the middle of a race. However, I do wonder if something is up with that transfer. Carapaz to EF never seemed to make much sense to me. Then again, Carapaz is an enigma.
 
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Anderis

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Kaptain Kool said:
Except that Alpecin will never be that since they already win stages in every stage race they enter. They signed a rider who finished 2nd in LBL but won't be able to do anything in a hilly stage in Poland?

Or should they be like, say, EF Education-EZ Post, with a bunch of 2nd/3rd tier riders who can get into breaks? Alpecin is 5,500 points ahead of them. Movistar's problem isn't that they don't have riders for northern classics or can't win a stage in the Binckbank Tour. Their random stage win in the Dauphine won't save them, either. Their problem is that their big signings over the last few years (Landa, Ivan Garcia, MAL) have been failures and Mas's current year is a disaster.
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You're trying to make it a kind of dilemma it's not.

I just wish no WT team would be as weak in the mountains as Alpecin are likely going to be. It's not a case of either be like Alpecin or EF. There are so many in-betweens.
 
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pman

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It'll be a big blow if Bjerg leaves UAE. He's the kind of rider they need more of--- good on fast flat stages, good on hilly stages, good in the wind and good in team trials. Let's be honest about the last point---if the 2023 Tour has a team time trial, UAE will lose TONS of time to Jumbo. Bjerg is one of the few strong TTers on the team besides Pog and JA. Sometimes I wonder what UAE is doing. Maybe they know there won't be a team TT next year. Maybe they'll sign some better TTers. But that's a potential big problem for them and Pog doesn't have a minute or two to lose to Ving in an stage like a TTT.
 
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Salvarani

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pman said:
It'll be a big blow if Bjerg leaves UAE. He's the kind of rider they need more of--- good on fast flat stages, good on hilly stages, good in the wind and good in team trials. Let's be honest about the last point---if the 2023 Tour has a team time trial, UAE will lose TONS of time to Jumbo. Bjerg is one of the few strong TTers on the team besides Pog and JA. Sometimes I wonder what UAE is doing. Maybe they know there won't be a team TT next year. Maybe they'll sign some better TTers. But that's a potential big problem for them and Pog doesn't have a minute or two to lose to Ving in an stage like a TTT.
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I dont know who is behind the scenes at UAE, but it seems poorly run.

They struck gold with Pogacar and they have money to pay their riders, but they seem very far behind when it comes to the infrastructure compared to Jumbo and Ineos.

More and more resembling of the old Lampre team.
 
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hayneplane

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Jumbo Visma Fan :) said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1554801645837582336
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/GroupamaFDJ/status/1554801645837582336

The whole FDJ conti core is going to be WT next year. I know a few have been announced, but to see everybody who is going up in one post is helpful.
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Makes a lot of sense as it seems to be a very strong crop and given the team already has oversight of their development they ought to understand their power numbers and future specialisations.
 
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AlfaLum

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Jumbot said:
Some weird rumors I've read today on WF... Apparently Quickstep is interested in Bjerg and Bora wants to sign Dani Martinez as a Wilco replacement I guess, Israel and Bike-Exchange are targeting Dylan Teuns and B&B want Nick Schultz... also Amador will follow Carapaz to EF and Fran Miholjevic should join his daddy at Bahrein
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I was also very surprised at the rumour that Herzog could already join Boras pro tour ranks..
 
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